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The Count: A-Rod’s Clutch Homers

Alex Rodriguez has shown a knack this season for clutch home runs. Of his 19 home runs this season, 15 came with his Yankees trailing by two runs, one run, tied or ahead by one. And six of those were in the 7th inning or later.

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This Alex Rodriguez homer against the Orioles in May put the Yankees up by a run and added 17% to their winning probability.

A more-sophisticated way of measuring his home runs’ usefulness is to use Winning Team Win Probability Added, shown on Baseball Reference’s home-run log. By that measure, Rodriguez’s homers this year have tacked on an average of 14.79% of a win — his highest total as a Yankee. Albert Pujols‘s average this season is 12.3%.

A-Rod has takena lot of heat during his stint with the Yankees for not coming through in the clutch, and for hitting home runs mainly when games were already settled. But it’d be more correct to say that his home runs’ clutch factor have varied from year to year. Last year they averaged just 9% of a win in impact; 14.54% the year before. Pujols — who has hit 239 home runs in the last six years, 12 more than Rodriguez — has been much steadier from year to year, but his overall clutch score for home runs isn’t much higher: 13.9% compared to 12.3%.

Incidentally, Rodriguez has hit 13 of his 19 homers in the new Yankee Stadium, and 12 of those were in close games. So he’s given hometown fans plenty of reason to appreciate his clutch slugging.

I wrote earlier this season that he’s shown signs of losing a step. Since then, his speed score and batting average on balls in play have improved but remain at career low levels. His fielding remains below average for third basemen.

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